owequitit: 2021 Honda Ridgeline RTL-E

[AccordWarrior]

Yeah, I hear you. I think the Toyota sixes in the trucks sound a bit gurgly and nasal, which I think it what you are saying. More wheezing than screaming. It must the be the way they route the exhaust because the GR V6 in other applications (like the IS) sounds pretty amazing.

I try to develop a vision of the car before I start. I did that with the CB and strayed a little bit, but not really a lot. I am tempted seeing all these things that people are still doing with them, but then I remember that my original goal was kind of just an OEM+ build with slightly more aggressive suspension. I think the more I leave stock the better down the road. I already can't remember half of what I did with it. I am trying to do the same with the Ridgeline. I sort of have a vision for how I want to be able to use it and how I want it to be when it is final. No plans to do anything performance wise, I just thought the intake would sound good (and it does, but too much good LOL). Slight lift, skids and tires and that is probably it. I don't need to do any crazy off-roading, I just want a better stance and to be able to actually get out into the wilderness enough to camp and hike. Other than that, there really isn't much I would change. At this point, I am holding off to see if I like the new Ridgeline that is supposed to debut later this year. Then I will know for sure if I am going to keep mine or switch and stick with that one because the Trailsport takes care of most of what I am trying to do anyway. Then I can probably just leave it very nearly stock forever.

In the meantime, I have decided that I will start a new round of home improvements to keep me busy. We have a few landscaping projects we need to do around here (gotta get the grass out), we need to start thinking about repainting, we need new carpet and a few other things that are normal in a house this age. Then I need to focus on making the garage functional. It is just haphazard right now. I have been thinking about it for a long time, but now it is time to start really getting it planned. I have thought about buying some quads or a jetskis or a side by side or something. What I really want is an Ineos Grenadier, but that is spendy.

I keep building the same truck over and over again. Had the ARB for the newest truck not required the cutting of the bumper, grille and flares, I'd likely have purchased another. So there's nowhere else to go. I don't want / need more power in terms of a tune (although a linear power curve would be nice). The Vette was derailed by the fact GM OEM parts are garbage but most aftermarket parts I added made the car measurably worse. In my mind the less intervention I have, the better.

I do want another WRX and have a vision in my head what I'd like. Sometimes I worry the fact it won't be another STi might get me down, but I think if I get away from the GD chassis car I'll be fine. If I get a GR series car I'll likely get MY04 BBS wheels to tie it into my old one. I should have never sold that car and simply bought an early C4 or a non-turbo 3G Supra for that open top feel. I have a monthly limit in terms of if I decide to finance as I am planning on having some cash on hand as a backup.

House projects come from a separate line item on my budget, but right now I'm honestly just catching up from last year. I went a little crazy over the past two years, so I'm more or less letting things calm down before the next big project. I also don't know if I honestly will be staying in this house long term or not, so I'm looking at everything through the lens of "good enough now to enjoy, but maybe not the absolute top dollar option". I recently built a shed I'm quite proud of and bought a few new items related to that I'm proud of.

I recently inherited some musical equipment, so I'm trying to re-ignite my guitar playing and bought a new amp head to run the cabinet I got. See what the future holds there.

[owequitit]

I keep building the same truck over and over again. Had the ARB for the newest truck not required the cutting of the bumper, grille and flares, I'd likely have purchased another. So there's nowhere else to go. I don't want / need more power in terms of a tune (although a linear power curve would be nice). The Vette was derailed by the fact GM OEM parts are garbage but most aftermarket parts I added made the car measurably worse. In my mind the less intervention I have, the better.

I do want another WRX and have a vision in my head what I'd like. Sometimes I worry the fact it won't be another STi might get me down, but I think if I get away from the GD chassis car I'll be fine. If I get a GR series car I'll likely get MY04 BBS wheels to tie it into my old one. I should have never sold that car and simply bought an early C4 or a non-turbo 3G Supra for that open top feel. I have a monthly limit in terms of if I decide to finance as I am planning on having some cash on hand as a backup.

House projects come from a separate line item on my budget, but right now I'm honestly just catching up from last year. I went a little crazy over the past two years, so I'm more or less letting things calm down before the next big project. I also don't know if I honestly will be staying in this house long term or not, so I'm looking at everything through the lens of "good enough now to enjoy, but maybe not the absolute top dollar option". I recently built a shed I'm quite proud of and bought a few new items related to that I'm proud of.

I recently inherited some musical equipment, so I'm trying to re-ignite my guitar playing and bought a new amp head to run the cabinet I got. See what the future holds there.

It's funny you mention all that. I really like the Corvette, but I know how era GM is, so I don't touch their stuff. My wife really wants a Tahoe, and the new ones are pretty nice, but $80K for a Chevy? I don't know about that. And they have the small block lifter issues which is a problem, though the diesel would be pretty cool.

I understand what you mean on the house. My budget isn't quite that detailed, but we do generally plan for stuff with a contingency for emergencies. But anything I don't put into the truck, automatically goes into the house. My other budgetary needs are met, so if there is extra cash it either goes above and beyond the allocated savings, or we indulge a little bit. I knew some of this stuff was going to need to be done eventually when we bought the house, so it isn't exactly a surprise, and it isn't emergent, just stuff we are looking at like painting the exterior since it hasn't been done and the house is pushing 25 years. It is starting to have spots where the paint is coming off in non-visible areas. The grass, well that's just stupid in the desert and I never liked grass anyway. But the previous owners had it and my wife likes it, so I left it. But it is just so expensive to keep it alive out here and we don't really have the water to pump through it to keep it green. Outside of that though, we are kind of in the same boat. I like where we are, I like the neighborhood and I like the house quite a bit, but there are just a few things about it that I don't know that I want to live with forever. I have a 3 car garage now, but it is a normal size one, so not as deep or tall as I would like. We would like another bedroom and a casita for the in-laws. My wife's parents are foreign, so when they come, they are usually here for awhile. I also don't love HOA's. I get the purpose, but they end up being more hassle than anything. We have a deciduous tree out front and when it dumps its leaves, it comes all at once. They keep "writing me up" for excessive lawn debris, and I was finally like "how many times a week do you expect me to clean it? And it dumps when it wants to, so why did you approve it?" They stopped bugging me. LOL.

It's funny you mentioned music, because I am working to get back to being able to play. My daughter is really interested in music and she is the about the right age to get into it. I am also trying to get a piano repaired that was damaged when it moved from AZ to TX. I am not even sure if it will be worth it, but it has some sentimental value, so I hate to get rid of it.

[owequitit]

I had this month off, so in addition to doing the maintenance, I also was able to wash it after about 4 months and finish blacking out the wheel lugs and center caps.

I've used plastidip a lot in the past, and I have figured out that I think people hate it so much because they don't apply it well. I've had pretty good luck with it, and it is easy to remove if desired. I also had some Plastidip on my 2013 Accord for like 5 years and it held up great. You have to spray it thick with many coats and basically, unlike spray paint, paint it until it seems like it is going to run. Since it is self-leveling, that seems to produce the best finish. I followed these up with Glossifier to make them shiny like the rest of the black trim. The other problem with Plastidip is that if you have to spray across two different surfaces that nearly touch, it is really easy for it to form a single film, which will prevent the excess from being able to be peeled off easily. That has been a problem with the little "H" emblems. I figured out that if you put a tooth pick under each corner to pry it up, the only place you have to be careful is where the tabs that hold the H snap into the cap. You can also just remove the H, but that is super difficult to do and is likely to leave some marring on the center cap itself.

The tailgate emblems are just OEM replacements.

[AccordWarrior]

It's funny you mention all that. I really like the Corvette, but I know how era GM is, so I don't touch their stuff. My wife really wants a Tahoe, and the new ones are pretty nice, but $80K for a Chevy? I don't know about that. And they have the small block lifter issues which is a problem, though the diesel would be pretty cool.

When I first bought the Vette the harmonic balancer was bad. So since I was used to the Honda / Subaru / Toyota world where the OEM parts were typically the "best" options unless you wanted to add extra power I said great, I'll spend the $900+ on OEM. The replacement wobbled and went bad, so it was replaced under warranty. The second one wobbled worse than the other two and I got "your crank snout is bent" and "no we won't replace it again". I had a local LS shop replace it with a Summit Racing SFI rated unit (which cost 1/3 the GM piece, labor was about the same) and it's spun true for years.

I didn't care for the stock seats, so I stupidly sold them and added Corbeau A4s which were well regarded if you weren't a big guy. They were Middle Ages torture devices. I ended up buying (5) OEM seats and Frankensteining a set for my car. I used a set of non-memory early Corvette seats, a flood car later style memory seats and a Z06 seat and built the correct memory / lumbar configuration for my car. Technically the base of my passenger seat is wrong for the year, but no one will hopefully notice.

The headlights on the Corvette are two mini-Maglites peeking out from under the hood. LED drop-ins are all the rage on the forums which is laughable since they're the worst thing you can do to a car. I purchased a complete HID retrofit setup from the highest regarded vendor. He uses all the "good stuff" to get the aim right and all that. The GM pop-ups have so much shake in them from the factory that the cutoff line was dazzling on the road. I used to inadvertently pull people over. This doesn't go into the fact that you have to use a 55w HID kit to get the pop-ups to work and they'd only work if you had the battery fully charged, so if I didn't drive the car every day the headlights might not work. Then I had one pop-up break. So I went in and thought it was the gears (it wasn't, ultimately) so I bought the well regarded brass gears to replace the cheap plastic gears in the drive assembly. Took it all apart, put it all back together and it pops up fine and slammed down.

In the end, I bought two new GM motors, put the OEM headlights back in and got Vosla 9012 HIR bulbs and called it good.

Literally everything I touch on the car makes it worse. I bought the transparent roof as a cool thing to have on nights where I don't want to drive around with the roof off but want the airy view. I haven't had a chance to adjust the latches so it rattles in the car. If it's sunny out the sun bakes on you and the sunshade I got with the top tends to droop and hit my head. I bought the BBS wheels but they were poorly powdercoated blue when I bought them. I took them all apart and had the centers painted, since I didn't want to re-heat them to powdercoat them and the paint is starting to flake since the powdercoating was so thick and failing the bodyshop did what they could but couldn't guarantee a long term solution.

I love the car while I'm driving it, but working on it doesn't really do anything for me and the whole Corvette ownership experience kinda sucks, TBH. I've been to a Corvette only show and 20 minutes in I wanted to punch myself in the face until I couldn't feel anything anymore. Nothing like getting lectured by a guy with a hat with flames on it which matches the shirt with flames on it for "changing too much on my car". He was upset I had BBS wheels compared to his car with the chrome knockoff C7 wheels, but whatever.

I understand what you mean on the house. My budget isn't quite that detailed, but we do generally plan for stuff with a contingency for emergencies. But anything I don't put into the truck, automatically goes into the house. My other budgetary needs are met, so if there is extra cash it either goes above and beyond the allocated savings, or we indulge a little bit. I knew some of this stuff was going to need to be done eventually when we bought the house, so it isn't exactly a surprise, and it isn't emergent, just stuff we are looking at like painting the exterior since it hasn't been done and the house is pushing 25 years. It is starting to have spots where the paint is coming off in non-visible areas. The grass, well that's just stupid in the desert and I never liked grass anyway. But the previous owners had it and my wife likes it, so I left it. But it is just so expensive to keep it alive out here and we don't really have the water to pump through it to keep it green. Outside of that though, we are kind of in the same boat. I like where we are, I like the neighborhood and I like the house quite a bit, but there are just a few things about it that I don't know that I want to live with forever. I have a 3 car garage now, but it is a normal size one, so not as deep or tall as I would like. We would like another bedroom and a casita for the in-laws. My wife's parents are foreign, so when they come, they are usually here for awhile. I also don't love HOA's. I get the purpose, but they end up being more hassle than anything. We have a deciduous tree out front and when it dumps its leaves, it comes all at once. They keep "writing me up" for excessive lawn debris, and I was finally like "how many times a week do you expect me to clean it? And it dumps when it wants to, so why did you approve it?" They stopped bugging me. LOL.

You're a good man doing the HOA thing. HOAs aren't really a thing around me, which is good because I couldn't play by those rules. My house is white cedar shingles, which I don't love but I'm staring down likely a 40k bill if I wanted to re-side the house. I could use a deck at this point, but I'm not sure what I'm doing there. My house has a lot of landscaping (which I've been pretty awful at keeping up with) so on a good year I'm buying 15 cubic yards of much to spread around. I like how it looks, but part of me wishes it was just grass. I am ultimately really excited about my shed, though. It houses my comically oversized snowblower, inverter generator and my new ride-on lawnmower, so it's a win for me.

It's funny you mentioned music, because I am working to get back to being able to play. My daughter is really interested in music and she is the about the right age to get into it. I am also trying to get a piano repaired that was damaged when it moved from AZ to TX. I am not even sure if it will be worth it, but it has some sentimental value, so I hate to get rid of it.

My cousin who passed was a very competent guitarist. My uncle consigned most of his high end gear but he did let me have his late 80s Marshall JCM800 1960A 4x12 cabinet. So I needed something to drive it so enter the Marshall SC20H which is effectively a 20W version of the JCM800 head. Sweetwater was running a deal on it so it's basically $40/mo for the next few years, but it sounds SO good and it's getting me playing again. I'll call that a win any day of the week.

[owequitit]

When I first bought the Vette the harmonic balancer was bad. So since I was used to the Honda / Subaru / Toyota world where the OEM parts were typically the "best" options unless you wanted to add extra power I said great, I'll spend the $900+ on OEM. The replacement wobbled and went bad, so it was replaced under warranty. The second one wobbled worse than the other two and I got "your crank snout is bent" and "no we won't replace it again". I had a local LS shop replace it with a Summit Racing SFI rated unit (which cost 1/3 the GM piece, labor was about the same) and it's spun true for years.

I didn't care for the stock seats, so I stupidly sold them and added Corbeau A4s which were well regarded if you weren't a big guy. They were Middle Ages torture devices. I ended up buying (5) OEM seats and Frankensteining a set for my car. I used a set of non-memory early Corvette seats, a flood car later style memory seats and a Z06 seat and built the correct memory / lumbar configuration for my car. Technically the base of my passenger seat is wrong for the year, but no one will hopefully notice.

The headlights on the Corvette are two mini-Maglites peeking out from under the hood. LED drop-ins are all the rage on the forums which is laughable since they're the worst thing you can do to a car. I purchased a complete HID retrofit setup from the highest regarded vendor. He uses all the "good stuff" to get the aim right and all that. The GM pop-ups have so much shake in them from the factory that the cutoff line was dazzling on the road. I used to inadvertently pull people over. This doesn't go into the fact that you have to use a 55w HID kit to get the pop-ups to work and they'd only work if you had the battery fully charged, so if I didn't drive the car every day the headlights might not work. Then I had one pop-up break. So I went in and thought it was the gears (it wasn't, ultimately) so I bought the well regarded brass gears to replace the cheap plastic gears in the drive assembly. Took it all apart, put it all back together and it pops up fine and slammed down.

In the end, I bought two new GM motors, put the OEM headlights back in and got Vosla 9012 HIR bulbs and called it good.

Literally everything I touch on the car makes it worse. I bought the transparent roof as a cool thing to have on nights where I don't want to drive around with the roof off but want the airy view. I haven't had a chance to adjust the latches so it rattles in the car. If it's sunny out the sun bakes on you and the sunshade I got with the top tends to droop and hit my head. I bought the BBS wheels but they were poorly powdercoated blue when I bought them. I took them all apart and had the centers painted, since I didn't want to re-heat them to powdercoat them and the paint is starting to flake since the powdercoating was so thick and failing the bodyshop did what they could but couldn't guarantee a long term solution.

I love the car while I'm driving it, but working on it doesn't really do anything for me and the whole Corvette ownership experience kinda sucks, TBH. I've been to a Corvette only show and 20 minutes in I wanted to punch myself in the face until I couldn't feel anything anymore. Nothing like getting lectured by a guy with a hat with flames on it which matches the shirt with flames on it for "changing too much on my car". He was upset I had BBS wheels compared to his car with the chrome knockoff C7 wheels, but whatever.



You're a good man doing the HOA thing. HOAs aren't really a thing around me, which is good because I couldn't play by those rules. My house is white cedar shingles, which I don't love but I'm staring down likely a 40k bill if I wanted to re-side the house. I could use a deck at this point, but I'm not sure what I'm doing there. My house has a lot of landscaping (which I've been pretty awful at keeping up with) so on a good year I'm buying 15 cubic yards of much to spread around. I like how it looks, but part of me wishes it was just grass. I am ultimately really excited about my shed, though. It houses my comically oversized snowblower, inverter generator and my new ride-on lawnmower, so it's a win for me.



My cousin who passed was a very competent guitarist. My uncle consigned most of his high end gear but he did let me have his late 80s Marshall JCM800 1960A 4x12 cabinet. So I needed something to drive it so enter the Marshall SC20H which is effectively a 20W version of the JCM800 head. Sweetwater was running a deal on it so it's basically $40/mo for the next few years, but it sounds SO good and it's getting me playing again. I'll call that a win any day of the week.

That would be so frustrating with the Corvette. What a hassle. And then, they didn't want to stand by the warranty. "Hey, you build junk, not really my issue." At least you got it fixed through the aftermarket though.

As for HOA's, I hate them with a passion. But out here, unless you have beaucoup bucks, you are going to be stuck with one. I have considered moving out further and buying a bigger piece of land and building something. Perhaps some day. Then I can be my true self and be like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino!

I always wanted a Marshall. I ended buying a 100W Hughes and Kettner years ago, and while it excels in heavier stuff, it isn't as nuanced as the Marshall for tonality. I may eventually just get into a Marshall if my playing gets back to a point where I deserve it. It is pretty cool that you got to preserve that from your Cousin though. That makes it special.

[AccordWarrior]

That would be so frustrating with the Corvette. What a hassle. And then, they didn't want to stand by the warranty. "Hey, you build junk, not really my issue." At least you got it fixed through the aftermarket though.

As for HOA's, I hate them with a passion. But out here, unless you have beaucoup bucks, you are going to be stuck with one. I have considered moving out further and buying a bigger piece of land and building something. Perhaps some day. Then I can be my true self and be like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino!

I always wanted a Marshall. I ended buying a 100W Hughes and Kettner years ago, and while it excels in heavier stuff, it isn't as nuanced as the Marshall for tonality. I may eventually just get into a Marshall if my playing gets back to a point where I deserve it. It is pretty cool that you got to preserve that from your Cousin though. That makes it special.

Honestly, outside of the owner base (and the forums, oh god if you disagree with their politics on the forums! Regardless of which side of the aisle you're on the rampant misogyny alone is enough to make your eyes bleed) the biggest reason I haven't messed with the Corvette is because I'm convinced nothing will actively make it "better" at this point.

My cousin had a true JCM800 head, there was the JCM800 his brother had that came from Aerosmith's 1991 World Tour, the Mesa Rectifier Solo 100, the LP Custom and a few other goodies that all ended up consigned. My uncle let me have the JCM800 cabinet, which I remember when I was real young as part of the stack he used to divide his and his brother's room. There was a Peavey 4x12 cab as well, but I really don't need a full stack in my house, and it's sitting in front of a window anyway, so blocking the window with a stack isn't needed..

[owequitit]

Honestly, outside of the owner base (and the forums, oh god if you disagree with their politics on the forums! Regardless of which side of the aisle you're on the rampant misogyny alone is enough to make your eyes bleed) the biggest reason I haven't messed with the Corvette is because I'm convinced nothing will actively make it "better" at this point.

My cousin had a true JCM800 head, there was the JCM800 his brother had that came from Aerosmith's 1991 World Tour, the Mesa Rectifier Solo 100, the LP Custom and a few other goodies that all ended up consigned. My uncle let me have the JCM800 cabinet, which I remember when I was real young as part of the stack he used to divide his and his brother's room. There was a Peavey 4x12 cab as well, but I really don't need a full stack in my house, and it's sitting in front of a window anyway, so blocking the window with a stack isn't needed..

But how are you going to turn it up to 11?!?!?

[AccordWarrior]

But how are you going to turn it up to 11?!?!?

I've done some reading and my unit through my cabinet can hit 122 dB. Once I did turn it all the way up, walked down the hall and around the corner and hit a chord. The floor started vibrating and I thought, welp, that was fun, let's not do that again. I normally play on about 1/2-1, maybe 1-1/2 if I'm home alone. Tone for daaaays though.